Chapter 41. Facing Forward
~ 13 BBY, 11 Months, 24-23 Days ~
~ on the planet Nechako ~
Physically speaking, Varda had brought back very little with her from her trip to Iwaki, Takodana and Yemer. All of it was now spread out on the low table in her living room: the slim black disc from Bail Organa, the grey thumb-sized memory drive from Dr. Gunma, and four flimsiplast containers of Yemerian soil and plant samples, two from the Dead Zone, two from the living desert. Those, and a sleek datapad that Ahsoka had lent her.
It was the third day since she returned from her trip. She slept through most of the first day back, after a difficult flight brought her home in the small hours of the morning. The first evening back she had spent in a long conversation with Devin, first listening to his account of his new apprentice and intentions for assisting his neighbours, then updating him on her travels and the new projects she had undertaken. And then the following day was entirely consumed in studying the articles Dr. Gunma had given her, that and reviewing Bail Organa's files, opening the contents of each memory device on the borrowed datapad and poring over the details until her eyes were sore.
Dr. Gunma's files primarily confirmed what she did not want to hear: that most attempts at microbial bioremediation in desert ecosystems were doomed to failure because there was not enough water or nutrients to support the specialized bacteria typically used. The highly invasive kudzura, however, had a strong track record of growing even in desert environments, even in highly toxic soils, and an independent research lab on Corellia had data to prove that they could engineer specific kudzura strains to be resistant to almost all the toxins identified in the Dead Zone.
Varda, however, was not prepared to give up on her idea so easily. The microbial bioremediation studies Dr. Gunma provided had not been carried out by Force-sensitives and did not explore the use of indigenous microbes, which would already be adapted to the water and nutrient levels in their desert home. It should be possible, Varda thought, to Force-connect with the local microbes and, in a sense, give them a sort of biological push to switch on whatever genes might allow them to degrade the type of molecules identified in the toxic soil.
That is, it could perhaps be possible if the microbes did in fact carry such genes, or at least, genes that a little Force manipulation might render suitable to the purpose. It would be possible if the microbes would allow themselves to be manipulated without resorting to the sort of Dark Side techniques Varda was as yet unwilling to use.
Carrying out her plan would be a long-shot, she knew, but she was determined to make the attempt. The first step would simply be to determine whether or not she could sense microbial life present in the toxic soil.
Having completed her shielding meditation to ward off the mental image of Ry Kyver that had haunted her visit to the Dead Zone, Varda sat on her shabby sofa and picked up one of the poisoned soil samples. She took a slow deep breath and tried to hold that one cupful of sandy desert soil in her awareness, that and nothing else.
It took at least thirty minutes of just sitting and breathing and focusing all her concentration on that one soil sample for Varda to admit she could sense no life in it. The crystalline structure of each sand particle, yes. The faint echo of the ancient ocean the desert once was, yes. But no life, not as such.
With a sigh she put it back on the table. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, she told herself, unwilling to give up. If there was life in that sample, it was probably in a dormant state: the soil was bone dry, and some of the toxins were broad-spectrum biocides that would likely destroy any organism that wasn't protected in the form of a spore or some other such hard-to-kill propagule.
Another approach, she decided, would be to try first with the samples from the living desert. She picked one of them up and cradled it in her hands. To look at, it was more or less the same as the samples from the Dead Zone: yellow-grey sandy soil with the odd tan-coloured bit of dead plant material. But through the Force, the difference was obvious within a few minutes of meditation.
The sample from the living desert held a faint vibration, almost like the rhythm of a sleeper's breath. That was quite understandable: in the dry soil, microorganisms were present, but without water they were metabolizing very slowly, half asleep until water came to wake them up.
Perhaps, Varda thought, she could use the microbes in the living desert to practice. Microbial connection, and even more so, microbial manipulation, were by no means universally understood among Jedi. It could be, she thought, that her own lack of skill was preventing her from sensing a small but nonetheless present microbial seed bank still present in the Dead Zone. If she could hone her skills by working first with the microbes in the living desert, the ones in the Dead Zone might become more accessible to her Force-perception. Or, she thought, if she could give the microbes of the living desert the right sort of metabolic Force-push, perhaps they could take on the ability to degrade those toxins, and then be seeded to the Dead Zone to carry out the bioremediation needed there.
Reminding herself to start small, but determined to try, Varda tried to tease apart the energies of the various microbes present. That would be the first step. If she could discern them as separate entities, then she might be able to get that sense of potential that she recognized in holding the seed of a flower or vegetable, forming an impression of what sort of being it would be when it woke from its dormant state.
It would take a lot of work, but if at least one of the organisms seemed adept at breaking down the recalcitrant lignins and waxes many plants left behind after their death, then she could begin to examine, Force-wise, whether any of the related molecular processes might readily be shifted to the breaking down of the artificial toxins, some of which, according to Dr. Gunma's files, shared a similar molecular structure.
But if such a thing was to be accomplished, this was not the moment in which it would yield to her. In the course of an hour's meditation, she could indeed separate out what felt like maybe seven different species unseen yet present in the sample, but in their dormancy, she could discern nothing besides that. It was like trying to look through a dirty transparasteel pane, seeing dim figures standing on the other side, but not being able to tell who or what they were.
That was when Ahsoka and Devin came bursting through the front door, broadcasting youthful energy.
"Yes, exactly!" Ahsoka was saying. "Make sure you've always got it with you, and any little chance you get, practice!"
While they peeled out of coats and scarves, calling out greetings and apologies for taking longer than they'd planned, Varda stump-stepped over to the kitchen and turned on the hot water machine for making tea. The main reason for Ahsoka's visit was not Devin's lightsabre training, but rather the soil decontamination project, and it was time for their meeting.
"Do you need a hand?" Devin asked, poking his head into the kitchen.
"Perhaps you could just put out the crisps in the cupboard there," Varda pointed. "How did your training go?"
"It was good!" There was an ease and excitement in his voice that Varda was glad to hear.
"It wasn't just good, it was great. Our friend Devin here is now the proud bearer of one fine light-staff." Ahsoka, arms casually crossed and a smile on her face, was leaning in the kitchen doorway.
"I'll show it to you later," Devin told Varda.
"Are we having the meeting in here or in the living room?" Ahsoka asked, gesturing to the kitchen table.
"Here is probably good," Varda said. Sitting around a table together felt a little more like getting down to business than cramming onto the sofa in the living room.
Devin disappeared from the kitchen, the words "I'll get some extra chairs" trailing behind him. Varda went to fetch her borrowed datapad and her assorted discs and notes.
With a plate of crisps and a thermos of tea on the round table, Varda took her seat nearest the kitchen counter in case her guests needed anything, and gestured for Ahsoka to sit opposite her.
Devin came back with not one but two extra chairs. "I asked Aggie to join us," he explained. "She has a pretty good selection of research articles in her memory bank, just might have something that can help. She's my farm assistant, kind of like an agricultural protocol droid," he added to Ahsoka.
Ahsoka checked her wrist chronometer. "Should we wait a couple minutes for her before we get started?"
Devin looked to Varda, who was reminded that if this was a meeting, she was in charge of it. She drew herself up in her chair. "A few minutes," she said, but then the buzzer rang.
"That's probably her." Devin jumped up to get it and the orange humanoid droid followed him back to the kitchen.
"Aggie, this is Varda, and this is Ah..Ashli," Devin caught himself. "Ashli, Varda, this is Aggie, my ag-droid."
Varda smiled and gave a nod as the expressionless droid waved her mechanical hand at them.
"Nice to meet you, Aggie," Ahsoka said.
"Nice to meet you!" Aggie replied, excitement in her voice. "I am AG-360, integrated..."
"It's OK, Aggie," Devin cut her off, "they know who you are now." With a look of slight embarrassment he added to the others, "She likes introducing herself and she doesn't meet new people very often."
Ahsoka gave a twisted smile. "A droid with personality. I like that."
Varda rearranged the two discs and datapad in front of her, deciding to wait before starting the meeting while Ahsoka set her datapad up, propping it up on a stand and attaching an external keyboard.
"Well, shall we get started?" Ahsoka asked, sitting up straight and looking around the table at the others. Varda gave a bemused smile. Evidently, they both thought they were leading the meeting, but she gave Ahsoka the nod, letting her take the lead.
"So, what I'm hoping for in this meeting is to hear where your plans are at for the soil decontamination project. My job will be to liaise with our sponsor and make sure you get what you need for your work, so I'll need to have a general idea of what you're hoping to do. I was wondering, have you two had a chance to talk about the project between you yet?" Ahsoka looked to Devin and Varda.
"A bit," Devin said.
"Devin and I had a chance to discuss, but actually, quite a lot has happened since you and I last spoke about the project with...our sponsor," Varda caught herself before she said Bail Organa's name, noting that Ahsoka hadn't specified him either. "I mentioned that I would need to ask Devin about using his farm as one of our research sites..."
"Which I'm totally fine with," Devin put in.
"...and it would seem there's a number of other farmers in the area who will also need help dealing with soil contamination problems. Do you want to say more about that right now?" Varda asked Devin.
"No, why don't you go ahead with your stuff first."
Varda gave him a quick nod of thanks. "Another addition to the project is that I've been asked to help heal a dead zone on Yemer, the one we found when we first landed there together. I know it might seem like a separate issue, but the Dead Zone was actually caused by a heavy application of the same chemicals that we are dealing with in the agricultural soils, only at much higher concentrations."
Ahsoka made a face. "Do they have any idea who did that, or why?"
Varda pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes. She wanted to focus on the project itself and not get sidetracked either talking or thinking about Ry. "Whoever did it, the problem remains. But we have before us an opportunity to work out solutions to the soil contamination problem under a number of different circumstances: low levels of contamination here at Devin's farm, higher concentrations at farms nearby and on other planets, and extremely high concentrations on Yemer. It may be that while researching the problem in one sphere we may find solutions that will help in the others. Devin, you were saying that you would like to focus your efforts here."
"Yes, I think that would be wise, on a number of levels," Devin said. "I'm keen to work on this but I'm only going to have so much time I can put in."
"And I agree that that makes sense. For my own part, I expect I can give this project my entire focus, and so I hope to work on a broader range of questions. Nechako will be my home base," Varda glanced at Devin to affirm that she wasn't running away from helping him, "but I will also be travelling to Yemer again, as well as to some other sites, as we discussed earlier."
"Excellent," Ahsoka said, fingers flying over her keyboard as she took notes. "Our sponsor will be very happy to hear that we've got you both on board." She finished typing before speaking again. "Now, I don't expect you to explain all the science behind everything you'll be doing, but I can do a better job of supporting you if I have some idea of how you're planning to go about this. I know things will probably evolve over time, but as of right now, what kind of approach are you guys planning to take?"
Devin and Varda looked at each other. Devin motioned for Varda to go first.
Varda glanced at Aggie, sitting motionless and listening to the conversation, then turned to Devin. "Can we speak about..." she held her hand over her datapad as if she were about to move it with the Force."
"Oh, yeah, no, it's fine, she knows about that."
Aggie tilted her head to one side. "I know about what?"
"Jedi stuff," Devin said. "Varda, you were saying?"
Varda shuffled her several pages of flimsiplast notes. "In brief," she said, "I see two main approaches. One is to find plants that are resistant to the chemicals, whether to grow as crops in the agricultural regions or to stabilize the soil in Yemer's Dead Zone before the wind carries toxic soil particles any further. I will be keeping an open mind to that approach, but my focus will be on finding microbes, ideally local species, that we could work with to actually break down the toxins. Much of this will be through Force-connection, and so I, or we will need to develop greater skills in that area. But I also hope to use various soil tests to determine which species are present in the soil and how various species, whether local or imported, respond to the toxins."
"So you don't think plants can actually break down the toxins?" Ahsoka took a pause from her notes.
"I think it's more likely to find a microbe that can do so. They tend to have a wider range of biochemical capabilities. But I know you were saying, Devin, when we talked earlier that you would like to include more plant-based work."
Devin ran a hand over his face. "Well, it's just that we're going to need something for farmers to make money while we figure the longer-term decontamination stuff out. Eventually, cleaning up the soil completely would be great, but in the meantime, we can't buy the chemical-resistant crop varieties outside the IAP, so we'll need something else we can grow and sell. But it's more than just that. I mean, we've been calling this the soil decontamination project, but unless we can get a clean source of fertilizer, it's going to be like trying to fly without a hyperdrive."
From there the conversation went off down a series of side-routes: Devin's project with the biodigester, the relative merits of investing the time to develop chemical-resistant crops versus trying to clean up contaminated farm soil, and the merits versus the dangers of Dr. Gunma's proposal to use the highly invasive plant kudzura to simply cover up Yemer's Dead Zone. Varda appreciated this sort of conversation; it wasn't so much about whose idea was better or worse, but rather about how they could best apply their limited collective efforts to the multi-armed problem at hand. They agreed, in the end, to stick with Devin's focus on the biodigester project and Varda's focus on trying to develop microbial Force-connection, but at one point in the conversation, Devin made a face and shook his head. "We don't have enough people to deal with a problem this size," he said. "Back in the AgriCorps, this kind of project would take easily fifty Jedi, plus technical support staff and droids."
"I was thinking the same," Varda said. "I was hoping that we might be able to recruit a few others to work with us."
"What kind of people do you need?" Ahsoka asked. "I mean, my network isn't exactly geared to agricultural research but I might be able to dig up some leads."
"Ideally, we would find other Jedi." Varda resisted, with mixed success, the urge to put a sarcastic note on this comment. "But in the absence thereof, Force insensitives who have experience working with bioremediation would be natural allies, if they can be trusted to join us on the project. I was hoping to contact a few scientists I was aware of from before the war to see if they are still around, and willing to help."
"Who do you have in mind?" Devin asked.
"George Washcarver, on Corellia, if he's still there, was one. If the environmental research cluster on Pantora is still functional, I was hoping to speak with them also."
Aggie disconnected Varda's discs, which she had been copying, and handed them back to their owner. "You might also get in touch with Robin Walkamer. She's on Corellia too and she's done some work on the role of mosses in bioremediation."
Varda and Ahsoka, heads bent over datapads, both made notes.
"So," Ahsoka said, "I understand a lot is still up in the air, but as of right now, what do you guys think you're going to need? I will at some point be able to get you a lump sum of cash you can use for project expenses, but I can also be involved doing some of the logistics for getting you whatever supplies and stuff you need."
Varda thumbed through her flimsiplast notes and pulled out her list. "Sterile containers for collecting soil samples," she read aloud.
"We can get those through the Co-op," Devin interjected. "We use them for water tests and stuff like that."
"Does the lab you send samples to also do soil microbial work?"
"Not beyond basic pathogen testing," Devin told Varda.
"If you give me the samples and let me know what kind of tests you need, I can take them by the science and biotech cluster over at the Wheel."
"I wonder, might our donor's budget allow for a small laboratory to be set up here," Varda ventured. "In the short term, it should be enough if you can get some tests done for us, but in the long run, it might be better for us logistically to do our own. That, and I wonder whether we can keep a lower profile if we aren't involving ourselves off-planet more than necessary."
"That's a good point. I can ask."
Varda made a private note to avoid any other high-price requests, not sure just how deep Bail Organa's pockets actually were.
Devin leaned forward. "What kind of test are you planning to have done? This is for the Yemerian samples, right? Or are you doing Nechako samples right now too?"
"Yemerian samples, yes, but I'm hoping to send in a few Nechako samples as well. I was planning on getting both DNA analysis and culture tests," Varda told Devin, then explained to Ahsoka, "The culture tests will let us see what is living in each soil type, or at least, what is alive that will grow in the culture test vials. The RNA and DNA sequence data might give us better information about the species that don't respond well to lab culture."
"OK, good," Devin said. "I was wondering if I could maybe piggyback on your lab submission. I've got a few samples from my farm as well as a few from Kat and Silas' places I'd like to look at, plus samples from the biodigester."
"I think I've got that all down, but maybe you can double-check." Ahsoka passed her datapad to Varda, who showed it in turn to Devin and Aggie.
"If you don't mind, I'll just add some parameters for the tests." Aggie looked to Ahsoka for permission.
"Sure. Is there anything else you guys need?"
Varda sighed and looked down at her list, hoping she wasn't asking for more than Bail had anticipated. "I'll need a computer for reading articles and doing data analysis. And if it's not too far out of budget, a speeder for local travel so that I can visit study plots."
"That works. Varda, you can keep the datapad you're using, but I'll also look into getting you a computer. It's pretty easy to pick up old ones cheap if you know where to look. Same for a speeder." Ahsoka looked to Varda, then Devin, then Aggie. "Anything else?"
"For myself, that is all." Varda set aside her datapad. "You, Devin?"
"Well, no, not unless there's room in the budget for childcare," he said ruefully.
Ahsoka gave a twisted smile. "I can ask," she said.
"Don't make a big deal about it," Devin back-pedalled. "Just..."
"It could be as simple as getting a droid with a TDL module. How about you," Ahsoka turned to Aggie, who finished her inputs and returned the datapad. "Do you have a TDLX circuit installed?"
"Oh, I have a TDL module already," Aggie made it sound offhand. "Access to childcare is often limited in rural areas, and so I've been equipped to perform most household and childminding tasks..."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Devin cut in.
"You didn't ask."
"I know, but most agricultural droids aren't..."
"Yes, but Virk was a genius." The pride in Aggie's voice was evident as she spoke of her maker.
Devin just groaned.
"While we're on the topic, what else are you equipped for? It might help if we know what we're working with." Ahsoka waited, fingers poised over her keyboard to take notes.
"I'm just a prototype, but the AG360 series droids were designed to assist farmers, farm advisors and AgriCorps personnel with all aspects of farm management and agricultural research. I can carry out basic soil and plant tissue analysis, and I provide access to the complete AgriCorps reference library," Aggie rattled off these facts about herself as if playing a pre-recorded message.
"That's...impossible," Devin said. "The AgriCorps reference library is too big for one droid."
"It's in hyper-compressed form," Aggie explained. "I can't access all the information all at once and it takes time to compress one section and decompress the next section, but it's all there," she tapped her metallic chest with one finger.
The three biological sentients looked at the tractor-orange droid with new appreciation.
"Our sponsor will be very happy to hear we've got you on the team," Ahsoka said.
"Might you have any texts on the use of the Force for working with microbial species?" Varda asked.
"Most likely. I'll check by tomorrow."
"Make sure to pass me the same articles you give to Varda," Devin told Aggie.
"Anything else?" Ahsoka asked. When the others shook their heads, she closed her datapad. "Well. It looks like you guys are off to a good start. I'll get back to you ASAP with the results of those samples and the other equipment and stuff."
"Great!" Devin said with a grin. "If we're finished, I'll go help get ready for supper. We're having a fire-cook tonight, out in the open, just like we used to do on Deema."
The meeting had gone far better than Varda expected. Not that she had expected it to go badly, but it brought far more momentum to their fledgling effort than she had hoped. Knowing that Aggie could offer access to the AgriCorps reference database was a great boon, and she was quite pleased with the fluid give-and-take of the team's interactions. They were off to a good start, she felt. After wrapping up in her coat and scarf and grabbing an extra blanket, Varda headed out to enjoy an evening by the fire with her young collaborators.
Walking out through the fresh grass at dusk, Varda saw Devin in the open space between their two houses, stoking a big fire with a long pole, the bright flames dancing amid a pile of branches. That brought back memories of long-ago visits to Deema when her friend Lu Mang was establishing an AgriCorps station there and they used to hold gatherings like this to welcome guests and trade stories. She felt a twinge of sadness for her old friend, but it was a happy memory, and she smiled.
Yet when the breeze brushed the smell of wood smoke across her face, Varda felt her eyes prick with tears.
On Hokto, she almost never made an open fire like this. It was too dangerous in the dry summer and a waste of fuel in the long wet winter. But one of the few items she hastily purchased for her escape to Hokto was a round cast-iron wood-burning stove, and gathering fuel for it was one of many chores that kept Eo busy. That was how they cooked, and how they kept warm on cold nights. In her mind's eye, she could still see Eo, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, crouched as near the burning-hot stove as she dared, reaching one hand out from the shelter of her blanket to scroll down to the next page of whatever she was studying on her digital file reader. Varda swallowed back a lump in her throat as she came near to Devin and his roaring blaze.
He greeted her with a grin. "Shie scored a load of firewood from a client whose tractor she fixed last year. I've been saving it for a special occasion."
Ahsoka, who was just taking a swig from a bottle of something dark when Varda arrived, motioned for her to take a seat on the folding chair next to her.
"Want one?" Ahsoka pulled a bottle from a cooler box and held it out to Varda.
"Thanks," Varda said and opened it. She didn't intend to drink much, but it gave her something to do with her hands. She quietly directed alcohol molecules up and out of the bottle, Force-wise, before taking a sip.
Devin, slightly inebriated, was talking avidly about the art of fire-making when his wife Shie joined the party with a tray of thin-sliced meat. "There's potatoes to roast too," she told Varda, who usually didn't eat much meat.
The parents had a brief exchange - Jonah and Siri were asleep, Shie told her husband with no small relief, as she sank down onto one of the folding chairs.
With a pair of metal tongs, Devin set a metal rack in the midst of the fire and laid a rectangular grill on top of it. "This is what we used to do on Deema," he said, "only they have a different kind of rack and more types of meat to grill. But this will do."
Ahsoka warmed her hands over the fire, eyeing the tray of raw meat with no small interest. Devin saw her expression and smirked. "You can try some if you want," he said, passing the tray over.
Ahsoka scanned the tray of vivid red slices marbled with white. She chose a medium-sized piece, which she picked up with two fingers and popped in her mouth. A dreamy expression came over her face. Devin and Shie exchanged glances and Shie snickered, one hand over her mouth to hide her smile.
"What?" Ahsoka asked, mouth still half-full.
Devin couldn't help a laugh. "Your pupils are, like, totally dilated!"
"Hey, if you saw what I'm stuck with to eat most of the time, you'd get excited about something fresh like this too!"
"Well, this is as fresh as you'll get. I killed the calf myself when I heard you were coming."
From there the two fell into an easy banter, first about the farm, then swapping food stories, which soon turned into Jedi Temple childhood stories.
Varda, for her part, was content to listen, the edge of her earlier feelings softened by the warmth of their conversation. The fire was still young, not enough embers to really start roasting yet, but she started wrapping potatoes in metal foil so as to be ready to go when the coals were right.
What passed for 'potatoes' varied greatly from planet to planet and place to place. These were not the long purple tubers that were, no doubt, now running wild in Varda's abandoned garden back on Hokto. Nechako potatoes were yellow-tan and almost perfectly spherical, except for little indentations where buds would form when it was time to sprout. And one of the tubers, in more of a hurry than the others, did have little nubs budding out. Varda touched them gently with the tip of her finger, feeling them all full of promise. They reminded her sharply of the first day Eo was on Hokto, when Varda taught her how to plant potatoes in the garden.
The smell of wood smoke already had Varda feeling homesick for those days; tactile memory added to that was too much. She felt her eyes sting and her throat go tight and she knew tears were not far away.
"Excuse me, I'll be back shortly," she mumbled and got up as if to go to the lavatory. Devin poked the fire with a stick in one hand and waved with the other but didn't look up. Ahsoka was telling a story with sweeping gestures of her hands illustrating the rise and fall of her voice. She gave Varda a concerned look but to the older woman's relief, said nothing as Varda hobbled off in the direction of her house.
As soon as she was far enough for the growing darkness to hide her, Varda stopped. She had no intention of going far, just far enough that the others wouldn't hear the catch in her breath or see her press her knuckles into her eyes or make a fuss when tears came spilling out anyways.
The trip to Yemer had made a difference as sharp as night and day but Varda still carried an ache that now had her shaking. She wished she hadn't made Eo go. She wished she had done the right thing and gone with her. There was no turning back time on that choice now, but there was plenty of time to remember what she had lost.
"Varda, are you lost? I can show you to the house if you want." The slightly-too-loud mechanical voice that startled Varda was Aggie, coming from the direction of the barn. Her round green infrared-seeing eyes gleamed faintly in the dark.
Varda sniffled and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. "No, no, I'm not lost, Aggie. It's alright. Go on, I'll join you later."
"OK!" Aggie said cheerfully. Whether blissfully oblivious or programmed to make no comment on sentient emotion, Varda was not sure, but she watched the droid walk up to the fire and ask to join the circle. Devin, bemused, assented and Shie pointed to an extra folding chair on the ground nearby. Aggie set up the chair and sat down, elbows propped on her knees as she leaned forward to warm her hands over the fire as if she too were an organic being. Ahsoka was still talking with broad gestures, she and her hosts all rapt attention, faces glowing in the firelight as they sat bundled up under the stars.
Varda didn't actually know either Devin or Ahsoka very well. Both were former students in long-ago days of the Temple, and Devin had been the apprentice of her old friend, Lu Mang, but their relationship had never been close in those days. Yet just the sheer fact that they were here and they were alive made their friendship a great gift, and she knew it wasn't every day they would all be able to gather like this; once this night was gone, she didn't know when another time like this would be.
After taking a few slow deep breaths to ground herself, Varda stump-stepped her way back. On one side the fire had burned down, and the grill was full of sizzling bits of meat browning over seething hot coals. The others looked up from their conversation with warm smiles and concerned looks as Varda returned.
"The coals were ready and so we put your potatoes on. I hope that's OK," Devin said. "Are you doing alright?"
Varda coughed into one fist and sat down, pulling a blanket over her knees and up around her waist. "I'm well enough," she said. The younger people's gently questioning glances reminded her that it was not as easy as it might seem to fool people, especially not Force-sensitives, but they let it go, instead pointing out salt and butter and some kind of spice for her to dress the potatoes with when they were ready.
The others busied themselves with the meat and Varda checked the potatoes. The smaller ones were ready and she broke one open, releasing a burst of steam and burning her fingers. The texture of these potatoes was drier and fluffier than the sticky type she grew on Hokto, but they proved quite tasty with a little salt and melted butter. She licked her fingers before remembering to take a napkin.
The rest of the bonfire was bittersweet. The ever-present smell of wood smoke still reminded Varda pointedly of Hokto and of Eo. Yet in that evening by the fireside, Varda got to know her young companions better than she had in all the days prior.
When the food was finished and the flow of stories ran dry, Shie brought out an instrument like a square ukulele. "It's called a zazerbox. It's from Deema," she said with a winning smile. While his wife finger-picked folk tunes on the four strings, Devin flipped over the now-empty cooler box and began to play it like a drum, weaving rhythms in and out of Shie's sweet singing. Ahsoka, who had laughed and protested that she had no sense of music, was soon tapping her feet and humming along.
Between songs, Varda saw Devin and Shie look into each other's eyes. More intimate than a kiss, that look told the story of joy and loss survived together, of sticking with each other through trouble that could have torn them apart. She looked away – it was, after all, their moment – and noticed the hunger and longing in Ahsoka's gaze as she watched them. Varda knew then that what Devin and Shie had found was something Ahsoka craved more than anything.
Varda smiled and put another log on the fire. She had left romance far behind after one aborted attempt back in her thirties, and was content to leave it at that. But she still craved companionship and community in a way she hadn't admitted even to herself back on Hokto. No one here on Nechako could ever replace Eo, but Devin and Ahsoka and Aggie still formed a circle of light and warmth against the dark and cold waiting to haunt her. For that, she was deeply grateful.
It was years since Ahsoka had lived under any one sun for long, and her circadian rhythms were more or less shot. After an evening of fun and good food, she passed out on Varda's couch well after midnight but found herself wide awake again only four hours later with a thin fringe of pink dawn at the edge of the sky, which she could see through a slit in the window-blinds.
Ill at ease with nothing to do, Ahsoka thought she might as well go to her starship and try to get some work done on decrypting the last data transmission she received, and quietly let herself out.
Ahsoka was no stranger to the stars or to the vastness of space, but there was something about the big dome of the prairie sky, full of strange constellations burning bright against the velvet end of night that caught her breath. Having just come from sleeping on a short couch in a small, shabby living room, the sky's sudden bigness made her stop and gaze upwards, and in gazing upwards, she felt small again, the kind of small that brought humility and wonder rather than fear.
The cool morning breeze brushed across her cheeks and each breath she drank in carried sweet and fragrant smells that made her think of trees and water. But around her were no trees and no water, only an expanse of grass whispering in the wind. Some wild thing howled in the distance and a delicious shiver went up from the base of her spine to the tips of her montrals.
The work waiting in her starship wasn't urgent; it could wait. And so following the feel of the moment, Ahsoka set off at an easy loping run across the grassland, savouring the air in her lungs and letting the growing glow of dawn fill her gaze.
With Varda's house and Devin's house and barn behind her, the flat, open grassland was punctuated only by a lone communication tower far to her left, a bunch of lumps that might be livestock some distance ahead, and a few silos from another farm far beyond. All was grass stretching to the farthest horizon. In the great expanse between ground and sky the wind moved like a soft breath. With the big dome of the sky above her and the broad land all around, Ahsoka found that she too wanted to open her lungs and breathe.
The openness of the space also invited her to open her mind and think. Usually, thinking was something Ahsoka tried not to do. Thinking usually meant remembering, and she spent too much time alone to remember without getting lost in the past: being kicked out of the Jedi Order and then choosing to leave when they invited her back, taking a few tentative steps towards working with the Order again, only to find her former Master gone and the Force screaming around her as the Jedi were destroyed. If time healed wounds, five years was not enough.
But it was just last night that she had soaked up the food and friendship offered around the fire, and the lightsabre training session with Devin had given her much that she wished to reflect on.
The only thing Ahsoka knew during her padawan years was War. That meant she had worked with warrior Jedi and diplomatic Jedi but never agricultural Jedi. Helping Devin bleed back the kyber crystals for his lightstaff was a new experience. She could feel the strength and depth of his connection to land and sky, air and water, grass and inu. It wasn't like how she experienced the Force. The Force was her power to transcend space, giving her that gut-level certainty that out there in a vast field of ruin and rubble, a friend was still alive, waiting to be rescued. The Force was her power to transcend the limits of her material being, letting her leap and flip in defiance of gravity, leveraging the life-energy of the universe. The Force was her kinship with the cosmos.
The way Devin connected to it, the Force was narrower and more localized. It was visceral: air in lungs, blood in veins, water drawn up through the roots of plants. It wasn't the life-energy of the cosmos; it was the life-energy of this place, here, his farm on the Moosachu Plains of Nechako. Ahsoka wouldn't trade her own relationship to the Force for anything; she needed her acrobatic dexterity to fight, and she needed her broad-scale awareness to sense danger and opportunity across light-years of space. But still, she wondered what it was like to experience the Force the way Devin did.
She had run with thoughts like this running through her mind for what felt like at least two kilometres, when she saw a big hunched form lift its woolly head and turn to face her, curly pointed horns silhouetted against the coming sunrise.
"Hello, you!" Ahsoka said, slowing her pace and stopping to look. Colours were hard to make out in the low light, but she could clearly see big dark eyes turn to study her as the animal ground up a mouthful of grass in its teeth.
Herbivores, she knew, tended to find carnivores like Togruta unnerving, and so for her part, she did not give the animal her direct gaze but studied it with little sideways glances. It worked. The big bovine bent its head back down to take another mouthful of grass, completely at ease.
Curious, Ahsoka took another step closer. She was pretty sure this must be an inu. That was what Devin said they'd eaten last night. Her mouth watered, but she carefully kept her eyes down and her shoulders slightly drooped, not intent on the prey but intent on understanding.
She had killed animals to eat more than once before. During the war, ration packs ran low on more than one mission, and she was fine with letting the clones take their share while she made a meal of whatever local small mammal seemed edible. Jedi were taught to respect the life of every being, and she did respect the lives she had taken. But the vibe she got from Devin – the way he connected to the Force, the way he talked about his farm – was that he was tuned in to the give and take of life in a way that she usually wasn't.
The inu raised its head and sniffed at Ahsoka with a wide wet nose, big nostrils blowing puffs of white vapour in the cold morning air. The sky was brightening now to a pale turquoise and she could see her reflection in the inu's big dewy eyes.
Cautiously, Ahsoka reached out her hand. The inu kept sniffing her and didn't pull away. Carefully, she rested her hand on the tuft of woolly hair between the inu's oval ears. Devin seemed to know what it was like to be an inu, as if he had a way of getting inside their experience himself. Ahsoka wondered what it was like to know the world of a semi-sentient being like that.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
What she met as she reached out through the Force was not so much a place on the spectrum of sentience and non-sentience, but a place of great simplicity. What mattered was grass, soft and sweet in its lush new growth. The urge to mate had come and gone; now a second being jostled inside, awake to its own simplicity of warm darkness, listening to the steady beat of two hearts pulsing life through the bodies of unborn and birth-giver.
Ahsoka, these days so often stuck in her head, decrypting intercepted transmissions and masterminding a dizzying array of anti-Imperial informants, found herself hyper-aware now of her own physical sensations: the texture of wool beneath her fingertips, the smell of crushed grass and of the inu's strangely sweet breath, cool air whispering against her montrals, and the steady beat of her own heart, its pulse echoing through her veins.
In that moment she knew, not just in her head but in her bones, that she and the inu were kin, creatures of breath and blood. She felt too the weight of the cycle in which she took part: she had eaten inu meat and drunk their milk. Sometime when she was back she might eat this inu too, or its calf. The eater and the eaten, each life flowing into the next.
Feeling there was something more, Ahsoka crouched down to the ground. The inu went back to munching grass and Ahsoka buried her fingers into the wet vegetation, down until she could reach the soil. Devin knew this stuff, the soil, the plants. It was different from the way she experienced the Force – but then she felt the hum of energy in the grass, in their roots, and knew that it wasn't as different as she had thought. She looked to the glowing horizon. This was connection with the cosmos. Soon the turning planet would bring the local star bursting into view. That star powered this place, the grasses ready and waiting to gobble up the stream of photons, ground and sky united.
It felt good to be here doing this. Ahsoka breathed deep the smell of soil and spring grass before starting to get up - and then something wet nudged her butt. She stood up fast and turned to look. A second inu had wandered over and was trying to lick her.
"What are you doing? I do not have food for you!" Ahsoka scolded, and laughed. She scratched the inquisitive inu behind the ears, only to find the first trying to lick one of her lekku. She couldn't help but giggle.
When the two started to get nippy, Ahsoka decided to head back. After one more look at the brightening pink horizon, she turned to go. Two heavy bovids lumbered after her and laughing, she ran. There was no way they could outpace her. When she stopped to look back, they were contentedly grazing again. "Thank you," she said softly.
A wild dog howled in the distance, and Ahsoka instinctively sniffed the air. They too were kin. Inu would make satisfying prey. She eyed the inu critically, but decided not to intervene. They would probably be fine to defend themselves, but if they weren't, their life-energy would be food for another and the cycle would continue.
Ahsoka took up a slow run but was not in any hurry to get back. In a few hours, she would leave Nechako and spend days on end cooped up in her starship, straining her eyes on hologram after smudgy hologram of rebel intelligence and eating the salty little packets of mystery meat that were her usual fare. But for now, the rising sun was warm on her back and she was loving the power she felt in simply moving her body. Drawing another sweet breath of real fresh air, Ahsoka lengthened her stride. It was good to be here, and good to be alive.
Feeling restless, Varda looked yet again out the window. The sun was well up and there was no sign of Ahsoka, either in the house or at her starship. With her bad hip, Varda didn't feel like walking to the barn to check there. Instead, she shuffled to the kitchen and started making breakfast. Ahsoka might well not want to eat, but cooking for one made Varda feel too lonely, and so she set to work, boiling potatoes and warming milk enough for two. While waiting for the potatoes to finish, she scrounged the bare cupboards and sparse refrigerator for herbs and spices and vegetables that weren't there, telling herself that today she would have to go and find out what kind of edible plants grew here.
"Sorry I'm late!" Ahsoka's voice called from the door.
"It's alright. Just come in. Do you want breakfast?" Varda called back.
Feet padded down the short hallway and then Ahsoka stood at the kitchen door. "I'd love breakfast," she said. "I'm starving!"
Varda smiled and took a good look at the young Togruta. Ahsoka still wore her stern paramilitary gear, but the lines of her face were softer, her limbs more relaxed, her Force-presence not so sharp-edged as it had been.
"Take a seat," Varda said and dished out milk and potatoes for each of them before taking a seat herself.
Ahsoka fell to the meal like a wild thing. Her plate was clean by the time Varda was only halfway through and she leaned back in her chair with a contented sigh, both hands on her full belly. "The food is so good here!" she said.
Varda was a bit surprised. To her, the food was not good here, far too much animal and not enough vegetable for her liking, but she realized then that it could be worse.
"Oh yeah, I meant to tell you," Ahsoka changed the subject, "I stopped by and saw Devin before I came back this morning. He gave me a bunch of samples he wants analyzed. You have some I should bring with me too, right?"
"Yes, a few." Varda got up and pulled a box from the cupboard. "These are the Yemerian samples," she said, holding the box tight as she passed it to Ahsoka.
"Don't worry, I'll take good care of them."
"Thank you. Your help is most appreciated." Varda took a quick look at the chronometer on the stove. "Would you like tea before you go?"
Ahsoka sighed and checked her comm for the time. "Wish I could stay longer, but I should get going." She got up from the table. "Thanks for having me here," she said. "It's been really great to see you again."
"Likewise," Varda said. "You're welcome any time."
Ahsoka gave a sad smile. "I'm not sure how often I can come, but I'll make sure to come whenever I can. And I'll let you know when I've got updates." She tapped the box of samples with a finger.
Varda followed Ahsoka to the front door, handing her her coat to make things easier in the cramped hallway.
Then it was time for Ahsoka to go. Varda looked her former student up and down. You've turned out well, she wanted to say, but thought it might sound too top-down, too parental. Ahsoka was a grown woman now, and it was time for an adult-to-adult relationship. "May the Force be with you," Varda said with a slight bow.
"Same to you. Good luck with everything!"
With that Ahsoka strode off to her starship, turning to wave as she went in. A minute later, the converted shuttle was taking off in the same halo of sunlight in which it arrived.
Varda watched the starship disappear into the bright mid-morning sky with a sense of both hope and apprehension. There was a lot riding on Ahsoka now. The results she hoped to get from that box of samples would help her start the more scientific component of her new work in earnest, but more importantly, Ahsoka was responsible now to do as much as could be done to apprehend Ry and protect her friends at the monastery. "May the Force be with you," she said softly again, looking up at the last place she'd seen Ahsoka's starship.
It was a small variation: a ground-level protuberance reflecting green light in the 500 – 530 nanometer range instead of the 540 – 560 nanometer range, with wide oval appendages that did not pattern-match to the linear leaves of the surrounding vegetation. Aggie stopped the speeder and walked over to get a better look.
A closer look confirmed that this specimen was, in fact, a plant: the location, colour, texture, moisture content, overall shape and attachment to the ground all pattern-matched it to that category. As she had initially observed, the shape and colour of the leaves marked it as being distinctly different from the surrounding plants, which she quickly identified as burwheat, a common local cereal crop. Waxy granules on the surface of the leaves, which were held in pairs on alternating sides of the three-sided stem, fit the description of Species 34901294857 in her memory bank, locally known as Sprigwort.
This was a corner of the neighbour Silas' farm, heavily sprayed in recent years with chemicals that should have prevented plants like Sprigwort from coming up. There were no similar specimens in the vicinity.
As that combination of deductions and data came together, several of Aggie's subroutines were initiated all at once. She logged the precise location of the specimen and calculated the time required to travel between there and her home base. Combining recent weather data and forecasts with her observations of the specimen's growth stage and species characteristics, she modelled the expect time until it would set seed. She also began decompressing the portion of the database involved with plant breeding and created an action item to search for articles on the incorporation of weed genes into crop species once decompression was complete.
She was on her way at the moment to return a tool Devin had borrowed from Silas, and her programming required that she finish the errand first, but her internal task list rapidly reorganized such that the first five items after the tool return were 1) ask Silas about the precise chemical application history in the area; 2) tell Silas about the specimen and ask him for permission to protect it from livestock, harvest and further spray; 3) enact measures for said protection if requested; 4) tell Devin; 5) tell Varda. Circuits buzzing, she was in a state that might be anthropomorphized as excitement.
While Aggie was programmed to serve as a farm management assistant, and indeed as a farm worker droid at need, she was actually programmed to prioritize research. After the meeting with Devin and Varda and the visitor she knew as Ashli, Aggie sat for a long time at her recharging station in the barn, searching her databases for information that might aid any of the proposed avenues for addressing the soil contamination problem. One article that came up in multiple searches was a study that two AgriCorps Jedi had done in collaboration with Zygeria Polytechnic University, examining the emergence of weedy vegetation on a toxic waste site on the planet Roonadan. They had concluded that both resistant genes in the plant species and microbes in the plant root zone were enabling growth on the toxic site, and had gone on to use genes from the plant species to engineer other toxin-resistant vegetation.
After inputting the article's contents to a search for similar information in her databases, Aggie set out to tweak her parameters. She already had the necessary modules for plant identification, but she turned up her sensitivity to variations in vegetation texture and colour as seen at high speed. This was what allowed her to notice the Sprigwort specimen even while driving the speeder.
An incongruity between her scheduling subroutine and her task list triggered a rewrite: Devin was not available within the time range of her probable return from the errand at Silas' place. She moved his item down the list and bumped up the item for meeting with Varda.
Aggie was only a prototype, but she was her maker's attempt to make what he considered to be the perfect agricultural protocol droid. After long periods spent at lonely AgriCorps outposts with droids that only knew how to crunch crop data, he was determined that his droid be good at making conversation. Aggie noted that in the two-hour drive that would be required to escort Varda to visit the specimen, if and when Varda so desired, there would be a relatively long period in which the human might wish to talk. Aggie began to review her brief acquaintance with Varda in order to identify suitable topics of conversation and search for relevant content from her database.
The soil decontamination project and its related science was one obvious topic. Aggie tagged a number of research articles that might be of particular relevance to Varda's interest in microbial bioremediation. She also noted that the human had served potato crisps at the meeting and eaten potatoes at the bonfire. Aggie added a list of potato recipes from various cultures to her conversational topic queue.
Another topic matched many of her criteria for conversation topics, except for one problem. Though Devin had been rather incommunicative since his return from taking Eo to Iwaki, Aggie deduced from various bits of information passed to her that this Varda was the same one Eo had spoken of knowing on the planet Hokto. Aggie's processor reiterated the evaluation: should Eo be a topic on the conversational queue? Stories of a mutual acquaintance who shared a strong interest in plant science were an obvious item of mutual interest, but Aggie concluded that she did not yet have enough data on Varda's cultural norms or psychological state to be sure it was acceptable to speak about a recently deceased member of Varda's social group.
The topic of the planet Hokto might carry less emotional weight for the human, Aggie estimated. She inserted Hokto after potatoes in the conversational queue, then added Eo with a strong conditional tag to evaluate Varda's behaviour and physiological state before bringing up the topic.
Eo had responded positively each time Aggie acted on her programming to seek new information and to seek biological companionship. There was some possibility, Aggie noted, that Varda might do the same. She increased the power level on the speeder and added tags to her intervening tasks at Silas' place indicating her intention to get them done as quickly as possible.
With Ahsoka gone, the house was quiet. Hokto felt like a lifetime ago, but the sense that someone ought to be there was still a fresh wound. Varda was used to having Eo coming and going. Even though Eo was a quiet girl, she was always giving Varda reasons to remind her to pick up after herself, assign chores to keep her busy, or answer questions about a plant she'd found or a line she'd read in her Siluan texts.
Varda tried to meditate. She added a little water to one of the remaining soil samples from the living desert and tried again to discern by the Force alone what type of organisms might be active there. But restlessness made her perception fuzzy. All she could tell was that yes, water woke the microbes up, causing an increase in overall metabolism, but that was it. Hardly a revelation.
She was almost glad when the door buzzer sounded. With the plant shield up it was hard to tell who was there, but it might be Devin, or...
"Aggie! What brings you here?"
"I found a plant you might like to see. It's growing in a part of Silas' field where herbicides would normally have killed it. It may be carrying new resistance genes or harbouring microbes of the type you were interested in."
"Oh, excellent! Can you take me there sometime?"
"We can go now if you like."
Varda quickly grabbed her coat and scarf, then realized she might also want her datapad to take notes, not only of the specimen but also of the conversation with Aggie on the long drive there. She intended to pick the droid's mechanical brain on a few different topics along the way.
Aggie helped her into the speeder. It was cold in the roofless vehicle but as they got moving the sharp air felt good against her face.
With a discovery like this so soon into the project, the will of the Force seemed to be reaching out from the future and pulling her onwards with ever-increasing momentum. It was an eerie feeling but she didn't mind. Work was her best defence against her more difficult feelings, and she was glad to seize this chance to be moving forward with the decontamination project.
Yet work was not the biggest thing on her mind. She found herself wondering whether Eo had met Aggie when she was here. Varda wondered whether Eo had enjoyed the chance to ask Aggie questions or whether her dislike of CX24 had predisposed her to simply avoid droids. Maybe she would ask Aggie whether she had met Eo, Varda thought. Not right away, but maybe later.
"I found an article you might be interested in. There were a couple of Jedi who collaborated with some scientists on Roonadan to study toxin-resistant vegetation that emerged in an industrial waste site there. It's relevant to the type of work we might be able to develop from this plant specimen. Would you like me to give you the summary right now?"
Varda smiled, both sad and bemused. She found Aggie's stilted but eager speech pattern endearing. "Yes, I'd be glad to hear it," she replied, and so their conversation began.
Endnote: many thanks to Sensey for catching some typos and other inconsistencies in the earlier posting of this chapter.